Book endorsements, also known as blurbs in the publishing industry, are 1–3 sentence snippets from recognized or respected third parties that sing the praises of a book. Endorsements can help bookstore buyers and readers differentiate your book from similar titles and decide if they want to bring the book into their store or take it home.

If you are looking for guidance on how to collect these valuable assets, please start with this advice on how to secure endorsements for your book.

After you've done the hard work to get impressive people you've never even met to say nice things about your book, you will want to make the most of those new assets. Consider these ways you can make best use of endorsements:

• The first and most obvious way you should use book endorsements is on the product itself. There are three areas that endorsements typically appear on a book, and your publisher can help you determine how to best deploy these:
  • The front cover: This prime real estate should be reserved only for a single endorsement and only if you've secured praise from a huge, powerful, household name in your space.
  • The back cover/flaps: If you've secured several compelling blurbs from impressive people, you can include 3–5 endorsements on the back cover, ensuring that their placement is prominent enough to potentially influence a purchasing decision.
  • The interior of the book: For books that have a large number of endorsements, you can include a full catalog of praise in the front matter of your book.
• You should absolutely feature the most impactful endorsements you collect on your website to ensure that the boost in credibility from well-known people praising your work carries over to your online platform. Endorsements are commonly featured on authors’ home pages as well as on pages dedicated to the book itself. If you have a large number of endorsements, you could consider a dedicated “praise” page on your website or pair that material with press coverage of the book, so that visitors can get all the third-party commentary on the book in one place.
• Blurbs work great as social media content, allowing you to convince people of the value of your work using another person’s voice. Smart authors create branded graphics using notable endorsements to help them break through the noise online and ensure those words are presented in a visually attractive way. (NOTE: It is always a good idea to make sure that the endorsers have granted permission to use their words in this way before posting anything! Some high-profile names stipulate that their endorsements cannot be used in marketing materials or online. The benefits definitely will not outweigh the damage of burning an important bridge.)
  • Tagging the endorser in social media posts can help nurture relationships and let them experience the halo from your own expertise.
• Endorsements often make an important difference in retail channels because the borrowed equity of qualified experts can help them decide to put a book on their shelves. For this reason, you would be wise to highlight the most powerful endorsements in sales materials for the book for channel marketing purposes.
• For the consumer market, you should list key endorsements in the book’s information on online retail pages to ensure they are captured in keywords and are viewable to people browsing titles online, which can help convert browsers to buyers. Consult with your publisher for the best placement of endorsements on retailer pages, but they most often appear in the book description (reserved for one stand out endorsement) and under endorsements, reviews, or from the publisher.
• Your own sales materials—for bulk purchases of the book, speaking events, or even your business service offering—can also benefit from book endorsements. In that sense, they serve almost as testimonials for the quality of anything you offer, and can help you burnish your own reputation.

As you move forward, think of a great endorsement as a statement piece of jewelry or a treasured lapel pin. You may not want to show it off every single day, but for important occasions—or how you present yourself online—a great blurb can help you stand out from the crowd and attract attention.

If you have any questions about how to best use your book endorsements, please reach out to marketing@greenleafbookgroup.com.